80. Operation: Doomsday – MF Doom



About time we got some Doom on here. Operation: Doomsday is a concept album about how the supervillain Doom came to be. The album starts off with a skit done like an old superhero t.v. show, in which a man begins to tell the story to a kid. There are several more skits like this throughout the album, and at the end the album ties right back into the beginning. The actual songs show off Vaughn’s (MF Doom’s) absolute hip-hop genius, with complicated lyric patterns and lots of vocal samples. The melody is usually either a simple jazz loop or something created from a series of samples (Hey! uses a loop made from samples off the introduction music to Scooby Doo) and the album flows together perfectly. Definitely something that needs to be listened to as a complete album, but there are definitely some great single songs on there too. If you like MF Doom at all, well, you’ve probably already heard this. Otherwise, if you like hip-hop infused with jazz and lots of samples, or if you like hip-hop and concept albums, check this out. Actually, just listen to this album regardless. It’s really cool.

Best Songs: Rhymes Like Dimes, Go With the Flow, Who You Think I Am?, Hey!,

79. Finding Beauty in the Wretched – Dirty Elegance



Finding Beauty in the Wretched is a trip-hop album with some idm influences; but at the same time, it is rather in it’s own unique genre. Simply put, this is an album of epic beauty. It’s very, very close to being in my top 10 albums of all time. It’d definitely make the top 15 if I did that. The female vocals, on the occasions that you hear them, sound like they are being sung by an elegant, upper class woman from the 1800’s to me while the melodies consist of sometimes haunting, sometimes somewhat strange, and sometimes hopeful piano parts or very interesting, complicated combinations of synthesizer and sounds that are usually muddied up. The name Dirty Elegance fits perfectly with the song title, and the wretched, evil dark songs are always beautiful, leading to the album title. I’m not really very good at describing electronic music, but goddamn if this didn’t convince you to listen to it, then just take my advice and grab this. Especially for fans of Massive Attack and Portishead, and jackhammer if you haven’t heard it before I think you would really like it (though I can’t imagine you not having a gem like this).

Best Songs: Solicitude, Jury and Hick, Tailor Made, Angelic Remedy

78. You’re Living All Over Me – Dinosaur



The epitome of Dinosaur Jr (I called this Dinosaur because that’s what the vinyl I have says, I think they changed their name due to a potential lawsuit shortly after it was released). About time we got some old alternative/noise/indie rock on here. You’re Living All Over Me is a nice noisy album, and it combines this sound perfectly with a nostalgic upbeat alternative rock sound more perfected and cleaned up than their previous release Dinosaur. The melodic, slightly out of tune, urgent, loud singing and the noisy, powerful, at times shredding guitar of J. Mascis have influenced more bands directly, in my opinion, than anyone else in my music library. Their layering of loud guitars with a powerful melody that bursts through a cacophony of noise is the basis for My Bloody Valentine, and if you listen to a lot of similar later music, you can literally hear their guitar riffs in tons of later alternative rock. They take from classic rock bands like Black Sabbath or Slayer in terms of the heaviness of their guitars and the speedy solos. But they’re so much more than any of the bands that influenced or were influenced by them. The entire band plays throughout this album as if they music is truly the only thing in this world that matters, and it shines in this amazingly powerful album. If you like rock and you’ve never heard this, then there is something wrong with you. Listen to it now.

Best Songs: Little Fury Things, Kracked, Sludgefest, The Lung, Raisans, Tarpit, In A Jar, Lose, Poledo (Yes, every track on this is amazing I couldn’t pick just three or four)

77. Everything Ecstatic – Four Tet



Everything Ecstatic is an electronica album with influences from glitch, breakbeat, rock, and trip hop. It’s a very beat heavy album, and the breakbeats hold the songs together as much as they break them apart. He manages to create melodies from some very interesting combinations of sounds. Everything Ecstatic encompasses so much; from psychedelic samples to hip hop beats to background glitch sounds to noisy cymbals and so on, but it can’t really be placed accurately into any of these genres. Hebden is basically throwing all these sounds at a canvas that somehow ends up not random splotches but more abstract in the likeness of an artist like Picasso (if that makes any sense at all). In other words, with all of the things he is putting together here, this album could easily be experimental electronic music, but he somehow manages to craft melodic, consistently amazing songs throughout.

Best Songs: Smile Around the Face; And Then Patterns; High Fives; Sleep, Eat Food, Have Visions